Someone asked for some illustrations and I agreed in spite of myself. The whole process felt a little odd, because, frankly, I thought I would have lost the ability to draw completely (this is what happened with my last abortive start about three years ago - felt like I remembered nothing at all and that quickly went nowhere. Been most of a decade since I really drew anything substantial).

This was also the first time I was able to do this entirely on Wacom - something I'd never really been able to do before, because I typically have to look directly at the drawing surface when I draw. Or I did. Apparently this isn't a problem anymore somehow?

Anyway, this is the preliminary which I sent off for review before painting them in. The characters are all depictions of actual miniatures which are for sale (including not-Corto Maltese), so the designs are not mine.

And the parts of the composite.

Now, the heads are a bit big, because that's just my style. And I know this. But at the end of a series of reasonable requests for small changes, I got a comment back telling me the proportions were all wrong. I don't think he understands that he basically asked me in an offhand way to completely redraw everything (well, not really, I can cheat a bit and use photoshop magic to shrink the heads and maybe diddle the proportions to make everyone a little taller and thinner, but still).

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

He also wants the Nazi gone, because he's the only one that ISN'T one of their miniatures for sale. I was trying to avoid the incredibly overdone "Looming Evil Fu Manchu" pulp stereotype, which I probably hate more than any other silly Pulp trope, but... clients.

So, the request to change the proportions isn't the end of the world - as long as the change isn't too severe. I resized the heads, hands, and feet, then cleaned up the limbs to fit (thinning them in most cases).

Here's a before/after (plus a head change because I also wanted to present two different options for the guy who's paying the freight). Reason I'm posting it is that I'm genuinely curious which one other people like better. The first is obviously more cartoony and stylized and the second is closer to realistic. I'm fine with both and could use either depending on what I'm doing but not sure what anyone else thinks?

You might have to stand back from the screen, or view them side-by-side to really notice the change.

I do miss the nazi though. He was way fucking better than the Fu Manchu dude. :/ Actually I might redraw Fu Manchu dude to be more 3/4. I'm hating this head on shot more and more. I don't want to do too many redraws though because it's not like this guy is fucking paying me much anyway (it's a barter deal).

At first it was just interesting that I wasn't rusty somehow, but now that I've completed the drawing portion of this, I am getting really weirded out.

After doing absolutely nothing, not a lick of practice not so much as a pencil-mark, for nearly five years, I can draw better now that I have ever been able to and this is really freaking me right the fuck out.

God knows what'll happen when I go to paint it. I am actually sort of hoping that hasn't improved, because... fuck what the hell is even going on here.

You might have accumulated knowledge and refined your taste in such a way that you can identify and correct (pre-emptively?) flaws better than you could before you went on hiatus. You may not actually have put pencil to paper (or tablet) in a long time, but you, as a whole person, have undoubtedly changed and evolved in a multitude of invisible ways, many of which must have some influence on your art.

In other news, Fu Manchu dude sure is gonna waste a lot of schemin' time finding out which of his enemies left a surprise in the Heavenly Imperial Water Closet.

François wrote:You might have accumulated knowledge and refined your taste in such a way that you can identify and correct (pre-emptively?) flaws better than you could before you went on hiatus. You may not actually have put pencil to paper (or tablet) in a long time, but you, as a whole person, have undoubtedly changed and evolved in a multitude of invisible ways, many of which must have some influence on your art.

I have assume that the explanation is something that and not BIZARRE SUPERNATURAL OCCURANCES. But it's still weird as fuck.

In other news, Fu Manchu dude sure is gonna waste a lot of schemin' time finding out which of his enemies left a surprise in the Heavenly Imperial Water Closet.

Well, the first of his published adventures was Ballad of the Salt Sea, so in theory that's as good a place as any to start. BUT the translation to English on that one is pretty vile (everyone comes off sort of flat and flavourless... actually this has been a problem with Corto Maltese translations to English in general - I'd recommend getting French copies instead, but... :P). Instead you might want to look at four books generally regarded as the strongest out of the dozen or so published volumes: Fable of Venice, Corto Maltese in Africa, Corto Maltese in Siberia, or The Golden House of Samarkand.